The revelation this week that immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border are being held 2,000 miles away in Westchester County follows a long-standing practice, immigration advocates said.

Local youth facilities like The Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry and Lincoln Hall in Somers have been housing unaccompanied young immigrants for years under a contract with the federal government, they said.

And it's also been standard practice for immigration officials to detain immigrants anywhere in the country, often miles from where they were taken into custody.

“Understand that it’s a very common, longstanding practice for ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to move people all over the country, long distances from where they have families, for example," said Vanessa Merton, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at Pace University. "As long as they are in custody, this is not something unusual for them.”

While the national saga plays out locally, President Donald Trump, facing a national outcry, said Wednesday he will sign an executive order to keep migrant families together at the border, abandoning his earlier claim that the crisis was caused by an iron-clad law and not a policy that he could reverse.

The order was drafted by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and would direct her department to keep families together after they are detained crossing the border illegally.

One of the buildings on campus of the Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry, June 20, 2018. (Photo: Mark Vergari/The Journal News)

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that "around 100" children detained at the border and separated from their families were in New York State, including in four facilities in Westchester County: Children's Village, Lincoln Hall, Abbott House in Irvington, and Rising Ground, formerly Leake & Watts, in Yonkers.

Officials at Rising Ground and Children's Village declined to comment and referred questions to federal authorities. A spokeswoman at Abbott House said the agency would issue a statement, but has not yet done so.

One of the barrack style cottages at Lincoln Hall in Lincolndale.(Photo: File photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

Where the children are

They are among 10 youth facilities in the state that have contracts with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to house unaccompanied foreign children.

Here's some information on the four based in Westchester.

The Children's Village, founded in 1851, has historically provided care to children in both the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

Abbott House, opened in 1963, is a residential facility for foster children.

The Leake & Watts Home for Children, now known as Rising Ground, opened in 1831. It provides residential facilities for special-needs adolescents.

Lincoln Hall Boy’s Haven, an all-male residential facility in Somers for orphans and troubled youth, was opened in 1863.

An estimated 2,000 children are now being held nationwide, sparking a controversy that has sparked fierce debate on Capitol Hill and in the country.

The Abbott House in Irvington. (Photo: File photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

Susan Henner, a White Plains immigration lawyer who also volunteers with New York Law School’s Safe Passage Project, said there are many unanswered questions about the administration’s intentions.

Henner, who has frequently worked with unaccompanied minors, said children from Central America who were stopped at the border have been brought to New York youth facilities for several years.

Those were generally children who had tried to enter the country alone. Most of those children had already separated on their own from their families.

“These kids now are losing the support of their parents," she said. "A lot of them have suffered trauma already and (the separation) is one more trauma they are going through."

"If you’re with your parents but held, at least you feel like there’s someone with you —either you’re going to succeed together or you’ll go home together and try to go to some other country together; that worst comes to worst ‘we’re a family, we’ll suffer together," she said.

Merton, the Pace immigration clinic director, said most of the children were from families who entered the country to seek asylum, and did not attempt to cross the border covertly.

Vanessa Merton, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the Haub Law School of Pace University(Photo: John Meore/The Journal News)

She said the parents of the children in Westchester are likely still near the border in Texas or Arizona, and the subject of detention proceedings.

"I would expect that the children would be removed also," she said. "It will just be at different times."

Lawsuits

Cuomo said New York has legal grounds to file a lawsuit against the federal government, in part because of children being brought to the state to be housed here under the federal Unaccompanied Alien Child program.

The lawsuit will be brought by several state agencies to "protect the health and well-being of children being held at at least 10 different facilities across the state and at others throughout the nation," Cuomo's office said.

The American Civil Liberties Union already has a lawsuit against the federal policy working its way through the courts.

Cuomo said he believes the federal action is illegal, citing previous case law and constitutional protections afforded citizens and non-citizens.

"It’s a violation of the constitutional rights of the parents to the care, custody and control of their children," Cuomo said on a conference call with reporters.

"This is a well-founded principle. It is in state constitutions; it is in the federal constitution."